Smokers` Children Get Poisoned With Their Daily Breath

November 21, 1985|By G. Timothy Johnson, M.D.

Dear readers: As a parent, would you allow your young child to smoke a single cigarette a year--let alone 80?

The Oct. 5, 1985, issue of the British Medical Journal contains an article which attempts to estimate the number of cigarettes a nonsmoking child would have to actively have smoked to account for blood levels of cotinine--a metabolic product of inhaled tobacco smoke in the blood--found in nonsmoking children who live with smoking parents.

In a study of 569 nonsmoking school children in England, the researchers found cotinine blood levels suggesting that if both parents smoke, a child might inhale enough passive smoke to be equivalent to about 80 cigarettes a year, smoked directly. Their comment is as follows: ``This unsolicited burden may be prolonged throughout childhood and poses a definite risk to health.``

I do not present these numbers to suggest they are scientifically precise, and that we can now run around quoting an exact figure, but simply to point out another piece of evidence suggesting that passive smoke does indeed have an impact on others, at least in the right environments, one of the most important of which may be in the home.

Absolutely, though the development of seizures after withdrawal from alcohol may take hours or days to develop. (The full-blown syndrome of alcohol withdrawal, known as delirium tremens or DTs, often involves seizures.) There is also some evidence to suggest that alcohol-dependent individuals are more likely to have seizures caused by bright lights--so-called photo-induced seizures--during periods of withdrawal from alcohol.

Dear Dr. Johnson: My 8-year-old child developed knee pain and I finally ended up with an orthopedic specialist who recommended arch supports for the feet. I must admit that the pain is much less since my child started using arch supports, but I still worry that it may have been something wrong with the knee itself. Is it possible that flat feet can cause knee pain?

It is indeed possible that problems elsewhere in the legs, including the feet, can cause pain in the knees. Flat feet can certainly produce stress on the knees, which can be lessened by the use of arch supports. As long as you are dealing with a specialist who has ruled out other possible causes of the knee pain, I would go along with what`s happening, namely that it seems to be getting better.